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Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Michael Bay On Verge of Signing on for Transformers 4?

New York Magazine's Vulture blog is reporting that director Michael Bay is "in final negotiations" to direct Transformers 4. Transformers Executive Producer Steven Spielberg has said he wants Bay for the next entry in the franchise. Last week, while at the opening for Transformers: The Ride in Singapore, Bay admitted that "We're talking about it, but there's nothing right now. I'm going to do a tiny movie first, then we'll talk about it, if I potentially do it."

The "tiny movie" is Pain and Gain based on a real life story of torture victim hiring a private eye to hunt down the "Sun Gym gang" of Miami bodybuilders that kidnapped him. The current rumor is Dwayne Johnson is being approach as lead but Mark Wahlberg passed on offer. According to Vulture's source, Michael Bay has been wanting to do the film since at least 1999 when the story was published and using the film as "Paramount's leverage" to get him to commit to a fourth story. They are reporting a deal is close but not yet final. As for the story, "the details of the next cyborg saga are being kept secret, but we’re told that it is definitely not a prequel, and that it will delve deeper into Transformers canon to mine older characters and lore." The plan would be for Bay to start filming Pain and Gain by early spring and then start production on Transformers 4 in winter 2012.

Once you take away the useless quotes, all you have is a story telling us what we already know because Michael Bay has already said it several times. He has been approached by Paramount to direct Transformers 4. He is considering it. No decision has been made. I just find the assertion that Bay's Pain and Gain is being as leverage to get him to sign on for Transformers 4 sooner rather than later to be ludicrous.

Love him or not, Bay has helped create one of the most successful film franchises in Hollywood history (9th on franchise all-time list) which makes Bay a power player right now. Bay had wanted to do Pain and Gain before Transformers 3 but bumped it at Paramount and Spielberg's request which leads me to believe the film was built into his Transformers 3 contract. Even if this assumption is incorrect, it has been estimated Bay made around $70-$100 million per Transformers film. He could finance the film himself if needed but it would not be necessary as at least one studio would step up for it as they would want him on board to help create a successful franchise for them.

Despite Vulture's story, I consider this to simply be a continuation of the now month's long status quo that Paramount and Hasbro are waiting on a decision from Michael Bay before deciding their next move in regards to Transformers 4. I don't think leverage has anything to do with it. I think for Bay it is part passion (his baby but six years was enough) and part money ($70+ million payday per film is hard to turn down for anyone). Hopefully Bay will comment soon on this story including the leverage aspect of it.

37 comments:

Let a real director take over. You know...somebody who doesn't need to rely on cgi, special effects, explosions, tits, and ass to make a film. Somebody with the intelligence, attention span, and maturity level above that of a teenager. I hope to Primus he doesn't return. You could really tell that he was way over Transformers and just wanted to get it over with by how rushed the last movie was at the end. Not to mention how quickly Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, and Shockwave were killed.

I told you guys in the earlier forum, its all over folks, love him or hate he's comming back. I actually think Bay plays these games on purpose, just to drive the haters and the Ebert crowd over there at Rotten Tomators nuts. After getting bashed by the so called critics his movies become major blockbusters and he just laughs all the way to the bank proving the so called critics are irrelevent. I personally would like to see a different approach altogether, hope thats what we get. Either way Trans4 is on the way.

"somebody who doesn't need to rely on cgi, special effects, explosions"

how else are you suppose to get giant effing robots on the screen? i'm completely 110% positive if the TF movies did cater to the wet dreams of the core fan base, it wouldn't do as well. the difference between the movies and the cartoon is the movie is generally a one shot deal; sure there can be a part 2,3 and 4. but you can watch each movie as a stand alone. the cartoon was 22 minutes every week, they had time to talk and plan and explain and divolge into whatever.

people don't want a movie with 'bots talking, flying through space, or long form fight between two characters while others try to rescue a cat which triggers a memory of a long ago fallen soldier, and they have to shed a tear and hold a memorial for the good work he did. cartoons only have to hold your attention for 22 minutes (+ commericals = 30 minutes); movies have to hold you for at least 1 hour and 20 minutes.

have you ever watched the 4 hour version of LOTR: return of the king? its f*cking boring. the theatrical version was great because it was well paced (there were some fast parts and some slow) and there was a giant battle.

PRIME example. look at dragon ball Z, the freeza saga. that sh*t went on for days and got boring. if they made that into a movie the main fight would be over in 30 minutes. freeza would do all his changes, goku would go SS; all in 30 minutes.

Anonymous 12/07/2011 12:40 PM: Lord Of The Rings Extended Cut is boring to you? Are you serious? Do you realize that it's one of the biggest franchises ever and people all over the world loved it? It's worth way more than Transformers franchise. If Transformers franchise ever had an Extended Cut of its movies that sold as much as Lord Of The Rings...

@Anonymous 12/07/2011 12:44 PM: the Freeza saga can span a 180minutes movie with a 240minutes Extended Cut. If any studios would ever produce a real live action out of the franchise like Lord Of The Rings.

you didnt read what i wrote properly and you're arguing a point irrelevant to the premise of my post. LOTR is a great series, i own and enjoy it; i OWN both the theatrical and extended cuts. what i said was that the extended cut of ROTK was long and boring, there were too many slow moving scenes. i understand that p.jackson was trying to make it as close to the books as possible. but for casual movie goers, a movie about giant robots with that pacing would be boring.

i think people are missing my point i was trying to illistrate. pacing is everything in movies. i think bay paced the TF movies great for the most part.and to be honest, bay is only directing, while he may have sone say in the script, its the writers who wrote the movie. blame them. look at the differences between PRIME and the TF movies. they have a bigger time frame in the show as it continues every week, so they can go into more detail. not the case for the movies.

when you watch a TF movie, what do you want to see? them standing around making battle plans, or building a fortress? what do you remember about the cartoon series? the action. the human characters are only there for people to connect to. to say "hey, that kid couldda been me." or "i feel the same way". thats the same reason they gave OP a mouth in that one. people have facial expressions, we watch and react to them. its easier to connect with the bots in the live action series because they can express, even in the smallest, on their faces.

Cgi and fight scenes are all fine and dandy for a film about warring alien robots from another world. But the problem with Michael Bay is that he does not value the things that make a movie great. He does not value what is important to any good movie: character development, depth, and a good story. But what do you expect from a guy who got kicked out of film school and his only early experiance in directing was for cheesy and lame music videos. He tried to give us a good story in the last film and sadly it got dragged on way too long which is why everything went to hell at the end. Michael Bay has a'lot more say and influence than people think, folks. Other people could do a better job with the robot characters and story. Hell! Zack Snyder could do a better job and those two are essentially cut from the same mold.

complaining about explosions in an action film is like complaining about nudity in a porno...while TF2 and TF3 werent that great, TF1 is a classic....let Bay take the time he needs and he'll deliver....Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon...all awesome movies.

I couldnt agree more 3:15 pm, I don't have a problem with the designes,action sets, stunts, explosions or special effects. The problem I have is there is way to much toilet humor and that leaves a feeling of doofyness. We need alot more death matches between different bots and alot more transformations and focus more on the Transformers than the human element, I know thats more expensive and is hard to do but beleive me thats what people want but I just have a hard time beleiving at this point that Bay will ever change his approach. I would like to see alot more serious and dangerous seens instead of deepwang deepwang or a bad ass robot like shockwave do absolutely nothing. like I said I dont think Bay will ever change.

Look we want a GREAT Transformers movie. Some elements can be added others simple cant. For a movie like TF you cant have slow sences... with characters that arent there you have to grab the audience and keep drawing them in. The director deal we should care less about WE SHOULD care about the story line for the movie!

If James Cameron can do a movie about blue people from another world that focused a great deal on the actual characters, then the same can be done with Transformers. Hell! I nominate James Cameron, JJ Abrams, or even Peter Jackson to direct.

To hell with Michael Bay! It's bad enough he got his greedy mits on the Ninja Turtles. How can something with such a ridiculous budget that makes so much money absolutely suck?!?!?!

@Anonymous 12/07/2011 5:28 PM: James Cameron with Avatar did his worst movie ever. Lucky him that tons of people got retarded enough to pay for an awful product. Too many adults nowadays can't use their brain anymore, going around repeating the babbling that 20th Fox marketing ordered them to repeat despite Avatar being at best a little kid low quality CGI cartoon still it got fashionable for adults to say that it was cool and smart and CGI realistic movie.. many really believing that like they were hypnotized, others clearly lying because it was fashionable telling how cool Avatar was even if they knew it was an awful movie. Enslaved people.

What's so wrong with people liking a movie and paying a lot of money to see it?

Why is that called "enslavement"?

People pay insane amounts of money for front row seats at basketball games, football games, and Justin Beiber concerts. But once you throw in a movie theater experience, you guys go apeshit.

I don't feel like a slave. I don't feel sadness or despair. I feel much more alive and free than I have ever been after seeing all TF movies more than 30 times in the theaters. So why is that wrong? What, are you going to go Communist on me now and throw me into the slammer for committing an offense against your own personal opinion?

Your taking my comment the rong way lionboogy, the rason I said your enslaved was the way 6:11 pm trashes people who like movies he dont and then calls them retarded and then says there enslaved people and thats why I daid he probably watches the movies more than any of us, but who knows I'm just sick of this guy trashing people and calling them names because they like certain movies. I really shouldn't respond to people like that but I couldn't listen to that crap anymore and I got sucked in and I seen you on hear many times and I know your a true Trans fan and have respectable views and comments.So lesson learned I just got to stick to commenting on the Trans universe and not get distracted by negative nonsense.

avatar was a disney rip-off piece of crap. the ONLY reason it made so much money was the 3D which they got to jack up the prices for. and EVERYONE and their momma's went to see it. i'll agree it film itself in 2d was pretty to look at. but TF had photorealistic giant robots fighting in real places here on earth.

I don't think its right to call anyone stupid, its a horrible thing to say period. Disagreement on views and debating eachother is what made America what it is today and if you don't beleive me just go to North Korea and try to express yourself, you wouldn't last 1 second and you would be crying for your momma, most people don't even begin to understand how lucky and spoiled rotten we all are but I wouldn't trade it for nothing. While I might get agitated on how some people treat others and call them names, in this country if you feel good about that, if that makes you feel superior, you got that choice and I think thats awesome, FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIAN BEINGS!!!...HA HA HA HA!!!